Suicide attack targets area southeast of Baghdad

Reuters Staff

1 Min Read

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two attackers shot several civilians on Monday in the Nahrawan area southeast of Baghdad before one blew himself up and the other was killed by security forces, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said, without providing official casualty figures.

Local media reported at least 17 people were killed and 28 wounded.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, described by an interior ministry spokesman as “a terrorist attack by two terrorist suicide attackers who fired indiscriminately on citizens in the Nahrawan area”.

The Sunni Muslim militant group’s Amaq news agency said it had killed 35 members of one of the Iran-backed Shi’ite militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces.

Iraqi security officials say Islamic State is likely to wage an insurgency after its self-proclaimed caliphate collapsed and its militants were dislodged from territories they held across a swathe of Iraq and Syria.